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In investigating how Maine offiicials get around open meeting laws, John Christie, editor in chief at the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, crashed a meeting of the powerful state Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee. Finding the public chamber where they normally met empty, Christie saw that committee were entering a private suite through a locked door. But Christie went around to another door marked “Legislators and Staff Only,” and found 5 of the 13 committee members at a desk.
“I had brought with me a copy of the state’s Freedom of Access Act because I had seen repeated reports in the media of closed-door meetings about the budget. I quoted portions of the act to the legislators, including one that states the public’s business, which includes deliberation by committees of more than three, is to ‘be conducted openly.’”
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